Distribution Know Your Market - Game Releases Per Day (Steam / Appstore / Play Store)

M

MrTP

Guest
Dear GameMakers,

Today I would like to give you a brief overview about the current "Game Releases Per Day" situation on the biggest digital distribution platforms:
  • Steam
  • Apple Appstore
  • Google Play Store
The reason why I want to show you these numbers is that I want to raise the awareness of game devs how important it has become, to work on the visibility & presentation of their games to shine out of the mass of new releases per day.


STEAM

Taking a look at the first eight months of 2016, we can see that during this period 2.915 games got released on Steam (please see http://steamspy.com/year/). In other words this means: 12 new game releases per day.

To give you a better insight into the increase of Steam releases per day, here are the numbers of the last years:
  • 2015: 2.977 Steam releases overall (approx. 8 releases per day)
  • 2014: 1.777 Steam releases overall (approx. 5 releases per day)
  • 2013: 565 Steam releases overall (approx. 1-2 releases per day)
  • 2012: 381 Steam releases overall (approx. 1 releases per day)

APPLE APPSTORE
Taking a look at the Appstore metrics (http://www.pocketgamer.biz/metrics/app-store/submissions/) we can see these monthly submission numbers - only for Game Apps - for the last eight months:
  • 2016-01: 19.265
  • 2016-02: 16.126
  • 2016-03: 20.105
  • 2016-04: 22.642
  • 2016-05: 25.255
  • 2016-06: 27.032
  • 2016-07: 27.848
  • 2016-08: 17.830
That means that a game dev who is planning to release his/her game in the Appstore, is in competition with approx. 500-800 other new game apps - PER DAY.


GOOGLE PLAY STORE
Unfortunately I couldn't find any up-to-date information about the current release ratio in the Google Play Store, so I have to use these numbers from a 2015 article, Mike Rose (talent scout at game developer and publisher tinyBuild) wrote for Gamasutra:

"Mobile is as tough as ever, being a mature, crowded market. Rose said about 500 games launched every day on iOS in 2014, and 250 a day on Android. "

My two cents: I don't think that 250 releases per day are still a valid number. I guess that - similar to the Appstore release ratio - we have to deal with 500+ game releases per day in the Google Play Store.
 

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4

41nd

Guest
That means that a game dev who is planning to release his/her game in the Appstore, is in competition with 500-800 other new game apps - PER DAY.
Wow.. so many people pay that hefty yearly subscription for Apple Store..
 
J

JDSTIGER

Guest
Damn apple, well lets keep in mind most of the apps on mobile are troll / low quality apps by kids.
 

Shut

Member
Wow, from 1 release per day to about 12 releases per day in just 4 years on Steam.. That's a lot of competition and here I thought it'd be wise to target PC market because of the mobile market being flooded. I guess that it's game dev in general that has been increasing in the recent years. I wonder what the stats will look like in the next few years.
 
T

Toppu

Guest
Unfortunately I couldn't find any up-to-date information about the current release ratio in the Google Play Store, so I have to use these numbers from a 2015 article
.....
My two cents: I don't think that 250 releases per day are still a valid number. I guess that - similar to the Appstore release ratio - we have to deal with 500+ game releases per day in the Google Play Store.
Daily stats for Google Play apps can be found here: http://www.appbrain.com/stats/number-of-android-apps

E.g.:
Sep 28: 2,425,071
Sep 29: 2,427,971
Sep 30: 2,430,954
Oct 1: 2,432,742

Which gives the average rate of newly published apps per day on Google Play somewhere around ~2,500. There is no breakdown between games and other apps, though.
 
M

MrTP

Guest
Daily stats for Google Play apps can be found here: http://www.appbrain.com/stats/number-of-android-apps

E.g.:
Sep 28: 2,425,071
Sep 29: 2,427,971
Sep 30: 2,430,954
Oct 1: 2,432,742

Which gives the average rate of newly published apps per day on Google Play somewhere around ~2,500. There is no breakdown between games and other apps, though.
Thanks, Toppu. Unfortunately it only shows the no. of apps overall while the release numbers above only show the Game Apps that got released in the Appstore over the last months.
 
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